Lying Liars

WaPo calls 'em out (from 5-24-17)

The Congressional Budget Office will release its score of the GOP health-care bill today, and whatever the details, it will confirm once again that the Republican plan would cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid, leaving many millions uncovered. This, plus continued discussion of President Trump’s budget — which would heap a whole array of other cuts on top of that — will demonstrate that Trump is fully committed to a truly transformative downsizing of social programs that help lower-income people, packaged with an enormous tax cut for the rich.

But the evidence is mounting that Trump’s economic blueprint — whatever considerable harm it would do to people who didn’t vote for Trump — is also likely to hurt untold numbers of people who did vote for him.

Trump’s budget would transform the structure of Medicaid and cut spending on the program by hundreds of billions of dollars on top ofthe GOP health-care plan’s hundreds of billions in cuts to the Medicaid expansion over 10 years. This would chop down the program by nearly half. It’s hard to know how many Trump voters would be hit by these cuts, but judging by Kaiser’s polling, we’re talking about a lot of them.

--and--

The White House has an explanation for Trump’s reversal on Medicaid. Asked by John Harwood to explain the flip, budget director Mick Mulvaney claimed the promise was supplanted by Trump’s promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. This is nonsense: As Brian Beutler explains, Mulvaney “layered a lie of his own on top of Trump’s,” because Trump’s budget cuts to Medicaid “go hundreds of billions of dollars beyond phasing out Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.”

I’d go further still: There are numerous Trump lies being forced out into the open right now. Trump claimed he would not touch Medicaid and simultaneously that he’d repeal Obamacare and replace it with something better for all. It was a lie for Trump to claim he wouldn’t touch Medicaid; it was a lie to suggest preserving Medicaid and repealing Obamacare were compatible; it was a lie to claim that his repeal-and-replace plan would result in better coverage for everybody. If anything, the White House’s justifications only throw the scale and audacity of these intertwined scams, lies and betrayals into even sharper relief.

Something We Should Know

It's just about being made to think Da Gubmint is taking it away from me and giving it to somebody I think doesn't deserve it.  

We don't know shit and what makes that a bad thing is that we don't even wanna know that we don't know it.

Helping

I don't know what to do about schools or poverty or unemployment or healthcare or crime.  I don't even know what to call it; this combination of symptoms that indicate a pervasive and (if history is any guide at all) generally fatal disease of the body politic.

Can we call it The Cycle of Shitty?

How 'bout Disintegrating Empire Syndrome due to Electoral Dysfunction?  Quick - somebody call Pfizer and threaten to give them billions of tax dollars if they don't develop a new pill to take our minds off our troubles.

I just don't know.

But I'm fairly certain that we can't keep following along blindly, buying into the bullshit of Austerity and Tough Love and Economic Shock Therapy - all of which are just manufactured terms used to keep us off-balance and to hide the fact that our "leaders" either have no workable solutions or they're determined to rule rather than serve.  Either way, not a happy choice.

Here's what I think I know:
You don't keep a guy from getting run over by a cement truck by shoving him out into traffic.
Translation - You help people by helping them - you don't help them by not helping them.  (and I can't believe ya have to say it out loud like that, but fuck me - I guess maybe ya do)

Here's my message for the guys who put up the federal budget - that's Paul Ryan in the House and Patty Murray in the Senate:
The only thing worse than a government that spends too much is a government that doesn't spend enough - so figure it out, assholes.

Gene Robinson at WaPo:

Alleviating stubborn poverty is difficult and expensive. Direct government aid — money, food stamps, Medicaid, housing assistance and the like — is not enough. Poor people need employment that offers a brighter future for themselves and their children. Which means they need job skills. Which means they need education. Which means they need good schools and safe streets.

The list of needs is dauntingly long, and it’s hard to know where to start — or where the money for all the needed interventions will come from. It’s much easier to say that culture is ultimately to blame. But since there’s no step-by-step procedure for changing a culture, we end up not doing anything.

And just to be clear about Paul Ryan's dog-whistle crap about some kinda "...tailspin of culture, in our inner cities...", let's try to remember what Brother Jay Smooth teaches us: